Sweet Blue Gene

With a name like a famous Kerry footballer, a face like BP Fallon and a song lamenting early closing time in his favourite watering hole (‘The Licensing Song’), it comes as no surprise that Michael J. Sheehy has Irish blood coursing through his veins – his father hails from Tipperary.

And for such a slight build, the former frontman with British cult act, Dream City Film Club, has one hell of a voice, by turns calling up all the richness and depth of Scott Walker or the hangdog misery of Tom Waits. The music creates the perfect canvas for him to paint his resonant images: the double bass, piano, acoustic guitars and strings emphasising and not interfering with his magical compositions.

There’s no twee self pity, no pseudo-emotional angst here. Songs like ‘I Can’t Comfort You Anymore’ and ‘Daddy Is A Good Man’ are pared back and bleeding, exposing their still beating hearts for our entertainment, so much so that there is a decidedly uncomfortable element of voyeurism in even listening to them. Sometimes shivers down the spine signal more than brilliance alone.

The mantra-driven ‘Oh Sweet Jesus’ is Depeche Mode crossed with Grant Lee Buffalo and transported to rural Ireland, where unwanted pregnancy and subsequent abortion become facts of life. Meanwhile, the ominous sea-shanty of ‘I Shame You With My Kisses’ sees Sheehy summoning the spirits of Cave and Harvey for a séance of skin and sin.

‘Auditory Nerves’ is the one lowpoint, a collage of sound effects overlain with a stream of consciousness science lesson that sits extremely awkwardly with the rest of Sweet Blue Gene. Even that can’t take away from what is one of the finest albums of the year, however.